Being a full-time student and balancing a job is a mentally exhausting task, but it is an unfortunate reality many Kennesaw State students face.
Yet, imagine an app that allows you to choose a shift that conveniently fits your schedule without requiring a long-term commitment.
Christopher Dancy, a senior philosophy major, Adam Rose, a senior marketing major, and Katrina Townsend, a senior psychology major, created Click-A-Shift, a student-based worker-share application set to release March 1.
Click-A-Shift works by allowing students to sift through a list of available workforce shifts. If a shift accommodates a student’s schedule, they are then able to request the shift. Employers that currently use Click-A-Shift include Technical Elements, Dangling Carrot and Vibe Kayaks.
“Students go to college to find out what they want to do for the rest of their lives but have to be stuck at one job until they decide to quit and move to another,” Townsend said. “We bring the freedom of college into the workforce and provide employers a more innovative and stress-free way to fulfill their needs.”
The app began as an idea in January 2017 when Rose and Dancy discussed “bringing back competitiveness” in school and implementing the “Uber” concept into work.
“They were brainstorming and swapping ideas about eliminating discrimination in work and other things,” Townsend said. “We really encouraged ourselves through the beginning of the company. There were a lot of people who said our concept was really genius and a great idea after we made it solid.”
The student-founded business, originally named Kinesis, was the result. The name was formed from the philosophical concept dealing with movement as the company intends to “move society to the future.”
The Click-A-Shift name came about when the team and their mentor, Bill Dallas, brainstormed potential company brands that related to “shift” or “job” and were impressed with the way Click-A-Shift sounded. The application was officially beta tested in July 2017.
The team says that Click-A-Shift is “a marketplace that connects businesses with labor needs with on-demand student workers.” Their mission is to “shift the workforce paradigm” and “change the employment status quo.” The team started off funding their idea and obtaining their clients by going door to door.
“I’ll ring the doorbell, no answer,” Rose explained. “I’ll proceed to peek through the glass, and I see people walking by and still no answer. Finally, someone actually comes to the door but doesn’t open it, and we would have to sell through a barrier that I know they can barely hear me through.”
Click-A-Shift made it into the final 12 of “Top 100 KSU,” a pitch competition that awards the winner with capital for the project. Although they only made it to the top 12, the team is thankful for the amount of knowledge and strategies gained throughout the competition.
“In the next 5 years, we should be in college campuses all over the U.S.,” Townsend said. “We think we will grow extremely quick and what we’re doing now for the coming years is preparing for the explosion.”
